May 28th, 2012

Author: Connie Moreno

First, I want to thank Ellie for hosting the CFO clan for a fun-filled day of sunshine and delicious barbecue grub!

Monday’s Memorial Day WOD

Ever wonder why some WODs (workout of the day) are given names? Or why most are female names? Often people who are new to CrossFit ask me about the naming of the WODs, and since Monday’s workout is "DT", I thought this would be a good opportunity to shed some light on the named WODs.

"DT" is just one of many "Hero WODs" named after a soldier who has lost his or her life in service (in this case, Timothy Davis, Feb 20 2009). Many of you will remember "Murph," another hero-WOD that comes up every year on New Year’s Eve. This is a way for the CrossFit community to honor military personnel, firefighters, or law enforcement that have died in the line of duty. While it’s always very sad to see new hero-WODs on the mainsite (crossfit.com), it’s somewhat comforting to me to see the outpouring of support from CrossFitters around the world. One thing that you might notice about these workouts is that they aren’t easy. The hero-WODs are notorious for being incredibly difficult and grueling workouts! This also explains why we don’t do them very often.

The Girl WODs

For the most part, these names are arbitrary and not named after actual people, with the exception of Eva, Nicole, Annie (named after Annie Sakamoto) and Amanda (to name a few that come to mind). These workouts are often referred to as "benchmark" WODs, as they are some of the original workouts developed by Coach Glassman back in the early days of CrossFit. Don’t be fooled by the sweet, innocent sounding names, these workouts are brutal! This Friday we will be performing "Fran"; a quintessential CrossFit workout that’ll make your head spin!

Here’s a complete list of the girl-named WODs and Hero WODs from crossfit.com.